This invention relates to a wireless communication system, and more particularly, this invention modifies the communication message for a better system performance.
Besides transmitting data, a wireless communication network also transmits different messages. These messages have pre-defined structure and meanings that carry commands and feedback back and forth between the network and the mobile devices. For example, the network may request the mobile device to perform a measurement either by broadcasting a SYSTEM INFORMATIONM and/or by transmitting a MEASUREMENT CONTROL message to the intended mobile device. FIGS. 1A–1E illustrate the detail structure of several relevant messages. The FIG. 1A illustrates the IE fields of MEASUREMENT CONTROL message 2. The FIG. 1B illustrates the detailed IE fields of IE “Traffic volume measurement” (TVM) 30. The FIG. 1C illustrates the detailed IE fields of IE “Traffic volume measurement object” (TVMO) 50. The FIG. 1D illustrates the detailed IE fields of IE “Traffic volume measurement reporting criteria” (TVMRC) 60. The FIG. 1E illustrates the detailed IE fields of IE “Traffic volume measurement system information” (TVMSI) 80. Refer to FIG. 1A. The MEASUREMENT CONTROL message 2 contains a plurality of Information Element (IE) fields. The IE “measurement identity” 10 contains a reference number used between the network and the mobile device. The “measurement command” 12 may have three different command selections, namely setup, modify and release. The IE “CHOICE measurement type” 18 specifies what measurement the mobile device should conduct. The MEASUREMENT CONTROL message contains additional information depending on the IE “CHOICE measurement type” 18. When the network wants to check the on-going uplink traffic volume of a particular mobile device, the network sends mobile device a MEASUREMENT CONTROL message containing the IE “Traffic Volume Measurement” (TVM) 30, which includes several IE fields, such as the IE “traffic volume measurement object” (TVMO) 32, the IE “traffic volume measurement quantity” (TVMQ) 34, the IE “traffic volume reporting quantity” (TVRQ) 36, the IE “measurement validity” 38, and the IE “CHOICE report criteria” 40. If the network wants to check out the uplink traffic volume of all its connecting mobile devices, it sends a System Information Block (SIB) message to all intended mobile devices. The SIB includes the IE “Traffic volume measurement system information” (TVMSI) 80, which contains 7 IEs fields 82–94, referring to FIG. 1E, such as TVMO, TVMQ, TVRQ, the IE “CHOICE report criteria” and others.
The TVM and the TVMSI have several IE fields in common. The TVMO is one of them. FIG. 1C illustrates the detailed structure of a TVMO that includes 3 IE fields itself, the first field contains at least one TVMO 50, the second field is the IE “uplink transport channel type” 54 and the last field is the IE “UL target support channel ID” 56. Another IE field in common between the TVM and the TVMSI is the IE “Traffic volume measurement reporting criteria” (TVMRC) 60. The detailed IE fields 62–78 structure of a TVMRC 60 is defined in FIG. 1D that includes a plurality of IE fields, such as the IE “Parameter sent for each transport channel” 62, the IE “Uplink transport channel type” 64, the IE “UL transport Channel ID” 66 etc. When the mobile device receives a TVM or a TVMSI, the mobile device shall take actions based on the selection passed in the IE “Choice report criteria” 40 in FIG. 1B and 94 in FIG. 1E. If the IE “Traffic volume measurement reporting criteria” is chosen, the mobile device shall send measurement report when the event-trigger criteria defined in TVMRC is fulfilled. The IE “CHOICE report criteria” indicates when and how the reporting method is requested to perform by the mobile device. If the IE “Periodical reporting criteria” is chosen, the mobile device shall send measurement report periodically per the parameters defined within the IE “Periodical reporting criteria”. Currently the network assigns a TVMRC either to each uplink transport channels individually, or to all uplink transport channels indicated in the IE “Traffic Volume Measurement Object” (TVMO).
In brief, FIG. 2 shows how a mobile device in the prior art processes the received MEASUREMENT CONTROL message. Upon receiving a TVM 100, the mobile device shall store the contents of the TVM in a variable 102. Next, the mobile device checks whether the TVMO field of the MEASUREMENT CONTROL is present or not 104, if it does not present, then the mobile device shall apply parameters sent in TVMRC to the mobile device's all uplink transport channels 106. However, if the mobile device received a TVM within the MEASUREMENT CONTROL message, in addition to a TVMO 104, where the message has a “setup” in the IE “measurement command” 108, the receiver shall further check if the IE “traffic volume reporting quantity” is present, then the mobile device generates report according to the measured quantities specified in the IE “traffic volume reporting quantity” 110, 116. If the IE “traffic volume reporting quantity” is not included in the message, then the mobile device shall clear all stored measurement control information associated to this measurement identity and set flag for configuration incomplete to be TRUE 112 and 114. Meantime, if the parameter “Average of RLC Buffer Payload for each RB” or the parameter “variance of RLC Buffer for each RB” is set 118, while the IE TVMQ is not included 120, or the IE TVMQ is included but the parameter “time interval to take an average or a variance” is not included 120 and 124, then the mobile device sets the flag for configuration incomplete to TRUE 122. Otherwise, if the “time interval to take an average or a variance” parameter is included, the mobile device uses the time specified in the time interval parameter to calculate the average and/or variance of RLC Buffer Payload according to the TVRQ IE field 124 and 126.
On the other hand, FIG. 3 illustrates how the prior art process a Measurement Control with a TVMRC 130, if the IE “parameters sent for each transport channel” of the TCMRC is absent, then the mobile device shall report such error 134 and 136. Otherwise, the mobile device stores the TVMRC to a variable MEASUREMENT_IDENTITY 138. If the IE “UL transport channel ID” is not included in the TVMRC 140, the mobile device shall apply the parameters sent in TVMRC to the mobile device's all uplink transport channels indicated in the TVMO IE field 142. If the network does not specified a TVMO for a given measurement identity, then the mobile device shall apply the parameters sent in TVMRC to all uplink transport channels that are configured for the current mobile device state 144, 146. If the IE “Tx interruption after trigger” is included 148, the mobile device shall block DTCH transmission on the random access channel (RACH) during the time specified in the IE after a measurement report is transmitted 150.
According to the prior art, if the network sends a MEASUREMENT CONTROL message to ask the mobile device to perform uplink traffic volume measurement on the dedicated channel (DCH) transport channels and a RACH, and if the network would like to assign the same reporting criteria to all the DCH transport channels and a different reporting criteria to RACH. Then the network, in the TVMRC of the message, assign the same reporting criteria to each DCH transport channels individually and a different reporting criteria to RACH. It must send the same IE “Parameters required for each Event” for each DCH transport channels and a different IE “Parameters required for each Event” for RACH. For instance, when the network assigns the same event 4A (Transport Channel Traffic Volume exceeds an absolute threshold) to all DCH 1˜4 transport channels and event 4B (Transport Channel Traffic Volume becomes smaller than an absolute threshold) to RACH, it must send a message that includes a information structure like [DCH 1+parameters required for event 4A, DCH 2+parameters required for event 4A, DCH 3+parameters required for event 4A, DCH 4+parameters required for event 4A, RACH+parameters required for event 4B]. In this case, apparently the system wastes valuable channel resources to transmit redundant parameters over the air. Under the current design, the parameters sent for event 4A for DCH 1˜4 channels are all the same. By transmitting the same redundant information four times in a message wastes the valuable system resources.